


Helpless Now

by Crowgirl



Series: Scars Remind Us [49]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Hunt Planning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-24
Updated: 2012-07-24
Packaged: 2017-11-10 14:22:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ongoing discussion, and ramifications thereof, between Dean and Castiel about the after-effects of Hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Helpless Now

XLIX.

‘Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me.’ Dean looks at the vehicle in dismay. He can hear Sam snickering behind him.

He knows Bobby has just about any vehicle you could want somewhere on the lot. He’s seen vintage stuff that would make car collectors drop to their knees and beg if Bobby could be bothered spending the time to buff it up but this? This is...

‘Yeah, I know.’ Bobby grimaces at the swirls of color along the sides of the old Vanagon and shrugs.

The paint job is really the least of it. Rain and wind and time have done their job on the panels and whatever it looked like originally, now it looks like a kindergarten class have been throwing paint at it. Dean thinks at one time it might have been a picture of some kind: maybe flowers? or a rainbow? The windows are about the only bit of the van to have escaped the brunt of the weather and they have been carefully painted up to look like flowers, each one different and highly colored. In the full light of the afternoon, they’re almost too bright to look at. Between the rust and dents in the side panels and the brightness of the windows, the whole thing looks like a bad acid trip.

Dean grits his teeth. ‘Explain to me again why I can’t drive.’

Bobby kicks at a flat tire. ‘Pretty hard to drive while you’re asleep, boy.’

‘Back seat of the car, then.’ Really, Dean had kind of been counting on that. The Impala is _his._ He knows every inch of that car inside and out and if there’s something he can’t fix on it, he doesn’t know what it is. It’s got his blood and his sweat all over it and if his baby can’t keep him safe, nothing can.

‘Dean, you’d hate yourself.’ Sam steps around him and runs a hand over one of the smeared panels, then grimaces at the multi-colored paint dust on his palm. Scraping his hand against his thigh, he adds, ‘Do you know how long it takes to drive to Arizona? You’d be folded up like a lawnchair back there.’

Dean bites his lip hard and walks to the back of the van, tugging the double doors open. There isn’t a shower of rust or moths or bats, although he had been half-expecting it. There’s a spare tire -- also flat -- jammed in behind the passenger seat, a moth-eaten blanket in one corner, and some folded up cardboard boxes. He glares at it. ‘It won’t work.’

‘Why not?’ Sam peers over one of the doors. ‘We’ll clean it out, set you up with a mattress or something...’

‘It’s...’ Dean bites his lip again and turns away, slamming the other door shut. ‘It won’t work.’

‘I’ve got that fixed, Dean.’ Bobby walks to the other side of the van and taps his knuckles against something that sounds hollow and metallic. When Dean looks around, he sees a sheet of plain metal, almost as wide as the van. He looks up at Bobby who shrugs and tugs on the bill of his cap.

‘Cas said you...well, you’d like it better if...’

‘If you can’t hear me.’ Dean tastes blood and spits out a pink mouthful. He runs a hand over the edge of the metal panel for a minute, tapping his fingers against it. He can feel Sam and Bobby watching him. ‘All right.’ He raps his knuckles sharply against the panel and hears it ring. ‘Lets do this.’

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "The Road I'm On," 3 Doors Down, _Away from the Sun_.


End file.
